Russia, Georgia, My Wife & I

OPED

I happen to be one of those innocent martyrs personally suffering from the historically damaged and presently irredeemable Russian-Georgian relations, and the reason for my martyrdom is my longstanding marriage to a Russian citizen, who is an ardent patriot of her beloved Russia and a rather reasonable buff of Putin’s extravagantly arrogant style of leadership.

This said, I have to state the fact that I am a native Georgian, reared in the lap of indigenous culture, who has by a sheer accident slaked his thirst for westernization straight from the Potomac waters.

Incidentally, the main lady of my household is – almost eagerly – for the reincarnation of the Soviet Union in its original borders, thus lawfully and peacefully reincorporating the pilfered territories back into the Georgian mainland, whereas I might easily run amuck just at the thought that the monster could someday be back. My wonderful madam sincerely believes in the width and depth of the Great Russian soul and the fairness of its imperial covetousness, whereas I carnally hate all that the giant Russia has done to my minuscule Georgia.

My better half is expressly proud of the Russian integrity with which it treats the world, whereas my heart and blood vessels are fit to bursting due to the meekness of the gullible believers that Russia will soon open its warm heart and noble mind to embrace its long-relinquished and torn-apart baby brother and heal its lacerated body.

We could certainly try to reconcile our differences provided the discrepancies were of temporary character and readily curable, but they have persisted far longer than any tolerable limit of pain and, according to most experts, the chances of seeing a silver lining on the murky cloud of the Russian-Georgian intercourse is as slim as it has ever been.

So what kind of a conjugal discourse you think the walls of my abode hear on an almost daily bases as we sit at the breakfast table – or otherwise – at home? The worst part of the whole story is that both of us are natural big mouths: we love to speak our minds loudly; we discuss the situation vehemently with no sign of attenuation; we also try to stay calm but we always end up in a nastily politicized quarrel. This is how politically dependent my family peace and bliss has become. And this is the way we both suffer, as the lovers of our respective countries in the middle of the procrastinated Russian-Georgian territorial strife, of which no end is beheld on the misty horizon.

By the way, the structure of the conflict is plain: Russia annexed Georgian territories, diplomatic relations between them are broken and reinstatement of said ties is unacceptable for Georgia until its territorial integrity is restored, which Russia will never allow. A real vicious circle!

The Russian-Georgian conflict is the reason I have desisted from believing in mixed marriages – you fall in love with an outlander and marry the darling, and then only the devil knows what is going to happen. How many hundreds of years should we stick around to see Russia and Georgia in mutual friendship and cooperation again, so that any mixed marriage between them is safe and ready to procreate the good instead of the evil. Nobody has even the faintest educated clue or at least a stray prognosis of what it would take to see those two nations back in the same warm and caring caboodle. Anybody’s guess is going to be wrong. Any forecast will be off target. Any prognostication will fail. No trained brain is strong enough to produce anything in least way smart for getting Russia and Georgia to “make it up.”

Meanwhile, life goes on and marriages like mine are losing their usual charm, strength and legitimacy, saying nothing about the connubial power that must keep two blameless people together and happy.

Nugzar B. Ruhadze